Dogs and vegetables share the counter at the roadside grocery store. I’m far far away from safety policies and hygiene laws. Love it. It’s refreshing over and over to feel humans living in a more relaxed state amongst one another. Barefoot in the gym, squatting on the toilets, no uniforms, no police officers in sight. Life on this little island in the Gulf of Thailand feels like it’s almost a festival. I’m running around in the sun listening to music, smiling weed, and doing nothing or anything I want. Seems like everyone else is doing the same.
We’re on Koh Chang, a quiet vibes island in Thailand. It took three hours by car and less than an hour by ferry to travel from Bangkok to our accommodation on this mountainous jungle island. National Parks, perfect roads, and fine white sand beaches welcome us… along with hundreds of cannabis shops. You can purchase weed at any counter; the coffee counter, the scooter rental, the bohemian clothing consignment shop, the tourist information booth, massage salon and the pharmacy even might sell weed. The whole town is high.
Fruit stands are the spot for tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch and snack. Tiny bananas, dragonfruits, lychee, and the most important fresh fruit of all…. The Thai Mango. The mangoes in Thailand win most delicious fruit award. We eat them fresh on the beach with cashews. We order fresh mango shakes with evening Thai food. Our faces light up with baffled delight at the first and second and third sip. When mangoes are THIS delicious there is really no sense in ordering any other drink.
This pink journal comes with me everywhere. I sit for hours in the air conditioning and under shady canopies with coffee, chocolate and stories dribbling out. Every morning Captain Bubbles and I scooter up the very steep hill to The Mount. He’s waiting patiently with a giant camera lens for the moment when a hornbill will grace us with its presence. I’m scooping the flesh out of a fresh coconut and you guessed it, writing.
There’s a little fishing village, shops on stilts full of elephant sarongs, shells and sea trinkets. White marajuana smoke swirls up from the roof of the Rasta View Cafe and disappears in the blue sky where the white belly sea eagles fly.
Pull the scooter over to the roadside gasoline stand. The gasoline comes in old liquor bottles. 45 Thai Baht for a bottle. The powerful scooter I’m driving can take four bottles. I wave at the lady behind the restaurant counter and she walks slowly out to the street to empty the bottles into the scooter tank and we exchange paper and coins.
And we float in the shallow turquoise water, eat the a Pad Thai and green curry, hold our breaths as the hot orange sun sinks into the sea, point at the crabs that scuttle into their sand holes, and giggle.
Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde